In gangland, this is known as a frame-up. But then, the Democrats are little more than a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, who have long relied on the thuggish tactics of Tammany Hall and evinced a distinct fondness for fellow travelers.

In retrospect, the Russian “collusion” narrative should have been obvious from the start. The Democrats and their principal mouthpiece, the Times, had hitherto never met a Russian agent they didn’t like; they themselves were knee-deep in back-channeling “information” to Christopher Steele, and his primary sources were Russian mischief-makers feeding the gullible former MI6 agent a steaming load of codswallop he knew his paymasters would be only too happy to swallow.

Whether this scandal—or, to hear the Left tell it, nothing-burger—is “worse than Watergate” is of course in the eye and memory of the beholder. For the aging Baby Boomers, who have inherited the reins of the mainstream media just in time to see it all slip away, the foundational myths of their journalistic youths were the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, and they long to bring down a president one more time, just as they destroyed Richard Nixon less than two years after one of the greatest electoral landslides in history. Often with deep ties to the Clinton Administration, they were only too eager to sacrifice their ethics for one last shot at immortality.